


A Monarch's Latin Primer

by ars_belli



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Catullus Poetry, Cunnilingus, F/M, First Time, Hand & Finger Kink, Light Bondage, Misses Clause Challenge, Older Man/Younger Woman, Oral Sex, Past Relationship(s), Slow Build, Yuleporn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:22:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8685574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ars_belli/pseuds/ars_belli
Summary: Victoria, Melbourne and Catullus.(Or: How Victoria learned to marry Albert and keep Lord M, courtesy of a dead Roman poet.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moogle62](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moogle62/gifts).



> I saw your _Victoria_ prompts and then your _Rome_ ones and wrestled with a way to fusion the two canons for so long that I didn't have enough time to write something in each fandom for you. However, I still wanted to appeal to your "little classicist nerd parts" as your letter said…so I gave you this instead.
> 
> I hope you like Catullus! 
> 
> Gaius Valerius owns the poems, I just own the dodgy translation errors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems: 5, 7, 79  
> William actually [went up in 1796](http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2016.pl?sur=&suro=w&fir=&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=LM796HW&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50) at Trinity. However, I confused this with 1804 when he was called to the Bar and therefore imagined he was contemporaneous with Byron, who [went up in 1805](http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2016.pl?sur=byron&suro=w&fir=george&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=BRN805G&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50), also at Trinity (what are the odds?). Never mind, what's historical accuracy in this fandom?

"Mrs. Melbourne!"  
Her Majesty kept her gaze resolutely on the conductor's podium. The tyrannical self-control forced upon her eyes was nothing compared to the draconian measures she imposed on her eyebrows, her lips, every muscle she could name. _Well done Victoria!_  
"Mrs. Melbourne!"  
A different voice. The young queen remained unmoved and unmoving. Evidently this was practice for her upcoming portrait sittings, nothing more. She was Galatea in reverse: the love of her sculptor sucking the life from her, turning flesh and blood to stone, the blood in her veins turning to dark lines in the palest, finest marble. Like the little busts of famous figures sold in Covent Garden. Miss Skerrit had bought one for her, she had claimed, of—  
"Mrs. Melbourne!"  
A third call. A third voice. A touch drifted onto the queen's gloved hands, just visible from her position at the row behind the pair.  
"You spoke truly, your Majesty. We have no acoustics like this in St. Petersburg."  
That was Victoria's cue, surely. To turn and smile and whisper something, anything into the Grand Duke's ear. This was merely a jest of her subjects, an excellent satire. Had she not seen the ladies at Court at their work? The young queen had petrified herself too efficiently, unable to acknowledge the support of her guest. The conductor rescued her. The overture had never sounded so welcome, and with the music came the ability to breathe once more. Until the interval, at least. William, she noted, had not so much as paused in his writing, too busy scribbling on Cabinet papers at the table at the rear of the opera box. The tell-tale noises of correspondence would have had anyone else thrown out, for Victoria went to the opera for the music, much to the amusement of everyone else in the grand tier. Not William, for dear Lord M. carried his own diplomatic immunity to the strictures of Court life, written in a cipher of smiles and glances and avuncular charm. _I would very much like a place at Court._ How easy it had sounded! As unpredictable as playing governess to Her Majesty might be, Emma Portman had to admit to herself that she was rather anticipating little Vicky ward off her suitors just as she had Sir Robert Peel.  


Later that evening, she found the original tucked inside Her Majesty's opera programme, and could only think _William, what have you done?_

> Let's live, Lesbia mine, and let's love  
>  and as for scandal and gossip and old men's strictures  
>  value that at less than a penny.  
>  Suns can rise and set without end  
>  but for us, once our brief life's quenched, there is only  
>  one unending night for us to sleep.  
>  Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,  
>  then a thousand more, a second hundred,  
>  then yet another thousand then a hundred,  
>  then when we've notched up all those many thousands,  
>  shuffle the figures, befuddle the total,  
>  so that no maleficent enemy can hex us,  
>  knowing the final sum of all our kisses. 

William returned to Government, as sure as the tides, despite the politicking suitors and Her Majesty's uncles and indeed Her Majesty's Constitution. Some weeks later (a thousand glances later, a dozen bouquets of increasingly rare flowers), Emma happened to be searching for a favoured hair ornament on little Vicky's bedroom table when she chanced upon the poem. It was not William's handwriting, but Victoria's, which made her anxiety over the last poem seem a trifling worry. This was not the royal writing desk. This was not a place for correspondence, unless it were to be secreted into a pillowcase, or hidden in a locket. And sure enough, the parchment was held closed by a plain gold ring. Too plain and too large for Her Majesty. 

> You ask, my Lesbia, how many of your kisses  
>  would be enough and more for your Catullus?  
>  As many as every Libyan grand of sand,  
>  in silphium-bearing Cyrene, from the shrine  
>  of torrid, oracular Jupiter to the sacred  
>  sepulchre of old Battus; match their total equal  
>  to all those stars that look down  
>  in the silent night upon the furtive loves of mortals.  
>  _That's_ the number of times I need to kiss you,  
>  _That's_ what would satisfy your mad Catullus—  
>  far too many for the curious to figure,  
>  or for an evil tongue to work you mischief. 

Upon her return from Brocket Hall, she watched Victoria feed the poem to the flames. She never set eyes again upon the ring.  


Parliament was unusually busy for this time of year. Not a problem in itself, but the Tories were still rumbling about royal corruption, the press were milking the now-averted Bedchamber Crisis for every salacious rumour they could find about William, and as for William himself, well….  
"Prime Minister!" her husband called.  
William blinked owlishly from further along the corridor to the Lords. The bruises under his eyes were the same colour as his smoking jacket. A late night, then, despite his pre-emptive exit from last night's disastrous ball. Perhaps an early morning, tossing in his bed with fractured visions of his dead wife and his dead son. She wondered why he had not called upon Edward for help before.  
"I have to run off to Windsor, I'm afraid," the Prime Minster announced. "Can you and Palmerston hold the front benches for me?"  
Noting their expressions, William shifted his papers from one arm to the other. He continued with a nonchalant air of skilfully-contained panic:  
"It's only tomorrow and Friday. The junior Whips have the backbenchers in line, but we cannot have the Chief Whip's hand so visible, you know what the Tories are like."  
More problems holding the party line. A victory on a Bill was as good as a defeat, it if were won by a sufficiently narrow margin, or so Wellington had said. Fortunately there was no voting scheduled for the rest of the week. Or was there? Surely William would never risk his party, no matter how lovesick he was.  
"Windsor," Edward drawled. "On a Wednesday. Do we think that dreadful German prince slipped her some laudanum? Opiates? Something a damn sight stronger than champagne?"  
William turned to her instead.  
"She has other Ladies, but I dare say they may fall for the charms of a pretty face."  
"Of course she will replace you as little Vicky's governess. Emma wouldn't miss it for all the rooks in Brocket Hall!"  
She spared a glare for her husband. Too sharp, that jest.  
"Can you arrive in time for dinner?" she asked.  
He nodded. Then he bit down on a yawn.  
"Orders from the Palace, I'm afraid. If my coachman drives like the devil; if the Speaker closes the session on time; if there aren't many of those vultures from the press waiting for Sir Robert and I…"  
Melbourne visibly suppressed himself from running a hand through his hair. The divisional bell rang. Emma watched the two men stride off to the debating chamber and headed for the public gallery. They had one vote to win, and then the real battle would begin this evening.  


The opening salvo transpired to be otherwise-safely-ancient history. The elder Coburg had found a da Vinci or a Carravaggio or a _something_ by _someone_ and waxed lyrical about the painter for most of the soup course. By the fish course, conversation had turned to the painting's composition and shortly after to the subject painted.  
"A most dreadful man," was the Duchess of Kent's assessment. "All that nonsense with Cleopatra, thirty years his junior and queen in her own right."  
"A very able statesman, dear sister, for all his womanising," contributed His Majesty.  
"He conquered a few bits of France, where is the statecraft in that?" said Albert.  
A flicker of sympathy might have been due to the prince, so clearly out of his depth in this cipher. Then she thought of William's gardenias and her heart hardened. He knew enough to ask for the metaphor of a secret love, and enough to charm little Vicky into granting it.  
"Most of Caesar's statecraft was performed in other politicians's beds, dear Albert," chimed Ernest.  
Prince Albert frowned into his poached trout. Harriet Sutherland blushed. Victoria had a brave stab at changing the conversation to something more decorous.  
"Was he not married?" she asked.  
"He did have a wife, but then she died," William supplied. "Childbirth."  
His Majesty's lips thinned. Had King Leopold lost a sister or a wife?  
"I thought she caused a dreadful scandal and Caesar divorced her," the Belgian countered.  
Emma racked her brains to forestall whatever was coming next.  
" _Bona dea_ ," she interrupted, in a flash of surely divine inspiration.  
She boned her trout with surgical precision, playing for time. Some fuss about a religious festival? Hadn't Caesar been the the chief priest or head augur or something? Foretellings for elections?  
"The second wife let a man into a sacred rite for women, didn't she? Doesn't every man want to poke their nose into where it doesn't belong?" chattered Ernest.  
At any other time, it might have been perfectly amusing to watch the sexual innuendo fly clear over the queen's head. Prince Albert's too, judging by his face.  
"It was hardly her fault Ernest," Albert countered. "The rites were at her house. How was she supposed to carry the blame for an interloping acquaintance?"  
"Quite so Albert! How does a young woman refuse the charms of a man mad, bad and dangerous to know?"  
Melbourne lavished upon King Leopold the sort of glare which was utterly wasted on the likes of Robert Peel. The Duchess of Kent's fish knife hung several inches above her plate while she stared from one man to the other. Her Majesty's Ladies had gone dreadfully silent, leaving poor Lord Alfred to rescue the conversation.  
"'Caesar's wife must be above suspicion,' wasn't it?" Albert supplied, public schoolboy to the last.  
"What did Caesar's wife have to say about all of this?" Victoria asked.  
"History does not relate, Ma'am," said William.  
Etiquette demanded that he address the queen directly. Had he torn his gaze away any later, it would not have surprised Emma one bit if Leopold's dinner clothes had started smoking.  
"Surely divorce was preferable to putting up with Caesar's womanising," contributed Lady Harriet, brain clearly elsewhere whenever Prince Ernest was nearby.  
"How will I ever find a wife when all the beautiful women say things like that?" Ernest jested.  
King Leopold opened his mouth, but William was quicker:  
"Marry an ugly one, your Serene Highness. Would Lord Alfred suffice?"  
No-one laughed harder than the poor Lord Chancellor himself. Amidst the bustle of plates being cleared, she caught a glimpse of William staring at the queen as if the world beyond had ceased to exist, while Victoria favoured him with a smile before turning away to Albert.  


Emma saw a petite shadow linger in the doorway. It passed by twice, unnoticed by William, who was too busy pacing himself into a state by the mantelpiece, and equally by Edward, who was clearly readying himself to seize William's coat tails from the fire. Her Majesty's other guests had gone to bed some time ago—bar Prince Ernest, whom Emma strongly suspected had gone to Harriet Sutherland's bed.  
"Did you not say that she herself would rather marry Robert Peel?" commented Edward.   
"Exactly, Edward, she cannot bear the sight of him _in public_! In public he was the Clockwork Prince until he needed to be charming, and then suddenly he was graceful and polite and interesting. In private—my God, she wants him to smile at her, she says! Would she care one whit for his smiles if he were less miserly with them? Would she strive to impress him if he had paid her the slightest compliment before? Of course not! We've never seen that strategy before, have we?"   
Edward grabbed the other man's sleeve and forcibly hauled him into a chair.   
"William, she is _not_ Caro, no more than Albert is Byron," he dared. William paused for breath, emptied his glass, and Emma seized her chance.  
"Come in," she called.  
Perhaps it was the excess of brandy which had made her so reckless.  
"Am I intruding?" Victoria questioned.  
They stood. Her Majesty exchanged pleasantries with the Foreign Secretary. There was a gaping space in the conversation. Not a mere pause, so readily filled with small talk, but a vacuum actively and greedily sucking the life from the room. William would know what to say to break the stalemate. She observed him critically. Whether he was in a mood to smooth over the queen's eavesdropping, or even maintain the pretence of an innocent conversation, was another matter entirely. VIctoria stared at William. William stared at Victoria. How _was_ she going to extricate herself?  
" _Lesbius est—pulcher_ ," William fired at her.  
"Lesbius is pretty," the queen translated.  
The careful neutrality of her voice did little to mask her ability to _translate_ and less to hide the fact that she knew that everyone else knew that she was keeping up: _Yes, Albert is handsome._  
" _quid ni? quem Lesbia malit quam te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua,_ " he continued.  
Victoria's lips thinned. _How not so? When Lesbia prefers him, to you, Catullus, and your whole family tree._ Faced with the prospect of an ill-tempered Prime Minster drunkenly spouting Latin poetry at her, Victoria made the entirely sensible decision to leave. William, however, was not finished:  
"Which tree Pretty Boy can _sell off_ , Catullus included, if he finds even _three_ friends to give him a kiss!" he called at her retreating form.  
Emma gave him a glare, which William saluted with his brandy snifter, then walked after Her Majesty as fast as decorum would allow.  


Victoria had not taken up her usual post by the window. She sat mute in her chair while Miss Skerrit skilfully removed the pins from her hair. Lady Emma curtsied in the doorway. Taking the queen's silence for assent, she moved into the bedchamber.  
"You must forgive William, Your Majesty," she began. "Sometimes he forgets that he is no longer at Cambridge."  
" _Must_  ?" she snapped.  
Victoria's shoulders quivered. Nonetheless, her hands were folded carefully in her lap, unmoving; her posture was as straight as ever. The little vase of orchids had not been sacrificed to the queen's temper. William might have been proud of her, had he not been in such a state.  
"He only had to say 'yes'," Victoria burst out.  
Her dresser removed the last few pins in haste, curtsied, then fled. Emma rather envied her.  
"Surely I was not as mad as Uncle Cumberland said I was! I did not _imagine_ his inclinations, Lady Emma."  
Something compelled Emma to walk over and place an entirely improper hand on the young woman's shoulder.  
"No, I do not believe that you did, Ma'am."  
Poor William! Victoria did not mean—surely she had not gone to Brocket Hall to—? Well, it certainly explained the ring.  
"You did not know?" Her Majesty asked.  
Her Majesty's reflection was the picture of incredulity. Emma took a deep breath. There was no time for subtlety now.  
"Lesbius is Publius Clodius Pulcher," Emma clarified.  
She watched the fragments of the evening's table talk flicker across the young monarch's face. She did not yet have William's skill at self-control, nor his long-honed ability to quell rebellious conversation with a glance.  
" _Lesbius est Pulcher._ Albert is Byron," she whispered, horrified.  
Victoria set her elbows on the desk and sank her head into her hands. Emma sacrificed her own handkerchief from Edward's endless supply.  
"You mentioned Cambridge," Victoria said eventually. "How old is Lord M.?"  
Emma sighed.  
"Yes, he and George Byron were both at Trinity. They had quite the little coterie going at one stage. They used to invite themselves to High Table and drink all the dons under the table; they put everyone to shame during May Balls, certainly finding all of the trees via which to break into other colleges; they wrote satirical remarks on the collection papers and dared the markers to prove them wrong."  
Her Majesty's mood had quite improved. Even talking about William calmed her.  
"I cannot imagine him being in trouble," she ventured.  
"No," Emma smiled, "He was too clever to be caught when sober and too eloquent to be punished when drunk."  
Victoria bit her lip for a moment. Then she walked over to one of her side-tables.  
"He gave me this," she confessed.  
Emma did not need to read the spine to know what it was. Fortunately, for the spine was cracked and the gold leaf mostly absent from _C. Valerius Catullus: Carmina_. She opened it gently. The frontispiece said "To William and Caroline on the occasion of their wedding, felicitations, etc. George." She turned the age-yellowed pages in her hands, graffitied in more than one script, and so worn that a glance alone might remove a page. It was deeply unfair of William to burden her with all his demons.  
"Will you tell me…?" Victoria whispered.  
Emma nodded fractionally. She would not betray her dearest friend, but she would not leave her monarch in this state either.  


Having assured Her Majesty that the world was not about to end (at least for her), Emma returned to Melbourne's misery. This time she had ammunition.  
"Did anyone spot you emerging from little Vicky's bed…chamber?" Emma questioned.  
Melbourne cast her an exasperated glance.  
"As I only slept with her the _once_ , I would imagine not."  
Her husband mouthed "Euphemism?" behind William's back. His eyebrows disappeared into his receding hairline at Emma's fractional shake of the head.  
"Didn't you trust the Grand Duke to carry her to her bed, William?" asked Edward.  
"Oh, I trusted the Grand Duke to carry her to _his_ bed, certainly."  
Despite their chuckles, a scowl blemished William's otherwise handsome features. Doubtless he was thinking of Albert, who would never have put out his back carrying someone as petite as Her Majesty, and who probably would have stayed the night all the same.  
"Has she told anyone else that playing the gallant turned you into a cripple?"  
"No!" William exploded.  
Emma turned her amused glance on her husband.  
"I think we have established that William dislikes being reminded that he is old and infirm."  
"Does he like being reminded that Her Majesty's presence makes him feel both youthful and firm?" Edward riposted.  
Their companion spluttered at their good-natured jesting. Theirs was merely the pain of stitches, sealing and tidying more gaping wounds.  
"Edward tells me that you long for the smack of firm government," William said in revenge.  
"Edward longs for you to smack my bottom," she countered.  
Melbourne lazily raised an eyebrow at her husband.  
"Oh? He usually advocates for a more disciplined Cabinet. How can I exert a strong, personal influence on its members, when my steady hand is clearly needed elsewhere?"  
Emma plucked the brandy snifter from his hand. William swayed only fractionally as Edward helped him up. His voice was as modulated as ever, but that was only to be expected.  
"Emma and I are always willing to be accommodating where you are concerned," Edward offered.  
He swung a precautionary arm around the other man's shoulders. The stairs in some of the towers were both steep and uneven. It was a measure of her faith in her Prime Minister that Victoria had quartered him where he was. More malicious tongues would say that it was the minimal distance possible to escape scandal—and the risk of being caught out of bed.  
"Given my current state, I fear that I have no choice but to be receptive to your charms."  
Oh, but he was a fine liar! "Too intoxicated for amorous congress" was a description of lesser men than William. Men to be pitied, not gently coaxed from their malaise and despair until they stood firm again. She no longer felt tired. His inebriation concerned her not at all. He had endured so much private grief, so often publicly dissected by the unforgiving pens of the periodicals. Nothing had defeated him yet. Why should this be any different?  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon the event which precipitates most of this chapter's action actually doesn't happen in England. I somehow forgot this key detail in my canon review. Since the next chapter AUs canon to fit a little bit more with historical accuracy, I hope you'll forgive the slip in this one.
> 
> Poems: 8

Lord M. was in most of his Windsor uniform, she noted. Her lips quirked upwards in mirth. Of course he would be running about a greenhouse in a half-buttoned jacket, cradling his prize in his fingers, too impatient for his valet to make him presentable.  
"This one is far too important to entrust to a courier, Ma'am," he announced by way of greeting.  
Gently, she rested her fingers under his cupped hands. Dirt lurked under his fingernails. Why did he persist? Why did he hurt himself so, again and again?  
"It's name is…oh, some bunkum that passes for botanical Latin, it doesn't matter. The point is that it is a night-blooming orchid from the Americas. I have not seen it bloom for decades. Not since my boy was still alive, and it doesn't like the light, or the cold, or anything about the English climate, and I thought it might just curl up and perish on the way from Brocket Hall, but it _hasn't_ , and…"  
He hesitated, and she saw the shade of Augustus in his hopeful eyes, his inordinately proud expression, his boyish charm, the slight smile that his un-gloved hands held a greater treasure than the Crown jewels.  
"Go on?" he ventured.  
Leaning over his hands, she peered intently, expecting all of the jewel-bright shades of the tropics, vividness which grey England could only match in gold and gemstones. With those, she could make Lord M. even as handsome as Albert, if only he would let her. Emeralds to match his eyes, yes, and rubies and darkest amethysts to make them more verdant still; diamonds that sparkled like his wit at Question Time, yellow ones as warm as his smile, or the same deep rose that flushed his cheeks when he swept into the State Rooms after a successful Bill; he refused them all. Even the Sword of State was an honour he would not accept in perpetuity. The wedding was the last time she would see him in his regalia. Yet how could she drink him in, so bewitched and befuddled by the presence of Albert alongside her at the altar? Lord M. unfolded his hands.  
"It is not…pretty," she said.  
"No," he agreed.  
With that, he withdrew his fingers, leaving her prize nestled in her cupped palms. Such a tiny flower, and so…masculine in its funereal colours.  
"Handsome, perhaps. The Grand Duke would have called it Victoria-sized."  
"Small but perfectly formed," Lord M. commented dryly.  
At the catch in his voice, she tore her eyes upwards, to see his own bright with tears. The smile lingered on his face, but so wry that his lips must have been driven more by pain than pleasure. His fingers returned to rest gently over hers, no heavier than the orchid.  
"I shall never set eyes on another. Perhaps in five years or ten I will ail, and doubtless my sister will close the greenhouses, and in twenty years I will be dust."  
He drew a ragged breath.  
"When Caro died, I wondered whether I would live to see it again at all. I know now, I think, that this is the last."  
Caroline, again. Why must he always call her shade from the underworld, this ghost who had doted on and abandoned him in equal measure? She should never have done such a thing.  
"Surely, there must be some way to preserve it?" she whispered.  
Dear Lord M. smiled. Then he crushed his hands against hers. Her eyes widened. Still he stared at her, unblinking, their fingers so tightly entwined as to be inextricable, both their eyes damp with tears. They remained in silence, contemplating the minor atrocity. The grandfather clock chimed from the floor below.  
"We are late for dinner," she remarked.  
Inclining his head, he permitted her to lead him from her bedchamber. He refused to turn his back on her. Protocol which rendered lesser men stuffy and awkward gave his retreat such grace that it calmed her. Lord M. had somehow carried the tropical heat of the greenhouses with him, for his hands were warm and strong and so unlike Albert's that she could not fathom how his grasp gave her the same pleasure. He tugged his hands from hers. Little flecks of the deceased orchid stained them.  
"My jacket," he murmured. "I can hardly go to dinner like this. People might wonder."  
He was hopeless, quite as clumsy as if she had had to fasten her own corset. Sighing, she reached for the remaining, gilded buttons. The blasted things were heavy, the loops were impossible to find nestled amongst the gold trim, and when she dragged button to hole, it gaily slipped from her fingers in a game of hide-and-seek.  
"Where is Skerrit when I need her?" Victoria huffed.  
That seemed to amuse him.  
"I doubt that she would intrude on such a tableau, Ma'am."  
Lingering at the top of his collar, her fingers found an unfathomable excuse to brush his jaw, then ascend slowly to his cheekbones. The will to desist from such an improper display of affection had deserted her. He mirrored the motion and she leaned into his touch, inhaling.  
"Oh!" she exclaimed.  
"No matter how sweet a perfume it has, it carries a cost."  
His smile blossomed into sadness.  
"You have created something which intoxicates one sense, but you have destroyed something which you nurtured and which delighted all your senses in return."  
The smile faded. Suddenly shy, she let her hands return to her sides. He caught one of them, bestowing the same brush of lips on it so familiar from Kensington, daydreamed over a thousand times.  
"Does he make you happy, Ma'am?"  
For a while, she feared that she had lost the ability to breathe, let alone speak.  
"He will," she asserted.  
With that she turned, and permitted his arm to loop through her own, and together they went down to dinner.  


"I can only tell you what I saw, Albert!"  
Victoria ducked awkwardly into an alcove holding some large, Oriental vase. Fortunately the porcelain monstrosity was taller than she was, even empty. Lord M. would fill the gaping urn with honeysuckle and jasmine, even in winter. She blinked, and the flowers were gone. The voices, however, were only beginning their crescendo.  
"You wanted to walk in with her, so I went up to discover why she was late, and, well, there they were."  
She could almost hear the resigned, half-amused shrug in Ernest's voice. Albert had not shrugged. He had scowled at her tardiness, but then the hold of her hand in his had somehow taken the sting from it.  
"I am certain that it was platonic," her betrothed huffed.  
Their outdoor shoes made heavy work of the wooden floorboards. Her cousins passed her alcove, inexplicably deaf to the hammering in her chest. The pair were incognito, in gentlemen's evening wear fit more for a baron than a foreign prince. Surely they felt almost as ridiculous in them as she would feel if caught in her night-clothes. Why they would be creeping off adventuring, after dinner and an hour's piano after that, was quite beyond her. Perhaps Albert had found some fascinating tree to show his long-suffering brother.  
"Ah, yes! A Platonic departure from her bedroom? Platonic buttoning of his Windsor uniform? Platonic stroking of each other's cheeks? The ever-so-platonic slide of his tongue against her—"  
"Ernest!" his elder brother exploded.  
She peered after them, craning her neck around the Ming. Ernest slung an arm around his disaffected sibling's shoulders.  
"Don't complain, Albert! She is clearly receiving an education, and _you_ are about to get your own. What do you expect her to do, dear brother, lie back and think of England?"  
Their voices faded as the pair vanished down the stairs to the library. She watched the glow from their candle diminished. Victoria rubbed her eyes and continued further along the South Wing. Although she did not require a candle to trace the way to Lord M.'s quarters, all the same she prayed heartily not to encounter any more insomniacs.  


Standing at the door to Lord M.'s rooms, Victoria found her feet absurdly fastened to the hall rug. What if he had departed for Dover House after all? What if he had not, and she interrupted him and Lady Portman? Although his glass had never appeared empty, no more than Emma's gaze had appeared to stray from the piano where she and Albert had sat, Victoria had been unable to deny the echoes of her first duet, and how Emma's stares had overflowed with concern while Lord M. downed glass after glass which left him curiously unaffected. That unease had driven her here, yet lacked the force to propel her over the threshold. She tried the handle. At first glance, she wondered whether he had abandoned the sitting room and gone to bed. It was only just past two, but perhaps he had decided to retire early. But no: he sat before his desk, facing towards the window which in daylight gave him a view of the gardens almost as delightful as her own. She closed the door with as little noise as possible. Walking to the desk, she examined Lord M.  


He had not divested himself of his Windsor uniform. An open book tilted precariously in his left hand, a letter creased into the open page. Gently, she prised the book from his hands. The pen followed, having long since dripped its cargo of ink onto the floorboards. The candelabrum near his head had overflowed its silver dishes. A few white spatters of wax adorned the sleeping man's cheek, still warm to the touch. Her fingertips lingered, the wax trail leaving them stranded between his strong chin and his neatly-sculpted mouth. She marvelled that the pain had not woken him. She knew how that felt, having suffered candles dripping onto her hands at Evensong: a sharp burst of heat, then a viscous, liquid warmth. Like one of Albert's better kisses, she thought distractedly. Surely, as a courtesy, she ought to remedy the situation. Victoria tugged at his sleeve.  
"Lord M.," she whispered.  
His long, dark eyelashes flickered. Yet he did not wake. Self-conscious, she ran her tongue over her lips. She inched closer, placing her mouth as close to the shell of his ear as she dared.  
"Lord M," she repeated.  
"Caro," he mumbled.  
His mouth tugged into a smile, then he turned on his side and curled further into his armchair. Sighing, she leaned over him and selected the wax stalactite hanging from his cheekbone. Digging one fingernail under the edge, she prised it upwards. It loosened, a little, and then the wax crumbled. Huffing, she tried from the other edge. This time it peeled off. An absurd grin of success still adorned her face when Lord M's. fingers clamped sharply around her wrist.  
"Ma'am?" he spluttered.  
"You were not in a state to receive visitors," she babbled.  
"What?" he began distractedly.  
A hand surely meant to bring order to his unkempt curls encountered the wax corruptions to his visage instead.  
"Yes, I see, well…" he huffed.  
He shrugged, not the slightest hint of embarrassment clouding his features.  
"May I?"  
Biting her lip to stifle a laugh, Victoria just about managed a nod. Lord M. prised himself from his chair and went to see to his face.  


Victoria sat in his chair. She enjoyed the rare pleasure of sitting in a gentleman's armchair: they reminded her of curling up in her father's at Kensington. She had struggled to paint a tableau of her parents alive, never finding enough history to plant her daydreams in _terra firma_. For want of anything better to do, she picked up the book on his desk. It was her book, for all that it had been his. Was it a gift, or a loan, or merely a temporary casting-away of his demons? When had the notions of _hers_ and _his_ become so tangled, so inextricable? The loose paper had been carefully hooked over the top of the current page. It had the wrong form for a letter, she noted. Of course. He had evidently been translating when sleep had overtaken him. Her eyes did not want to focus on the words. Victoria found herself blushing, as if she had intruded on his private correspondence.  


>   
>  Wretched Catullus, stop this foolhardy idiocy,  
>  and what you see to be perished, treat as lost for good.  
>  Once, for you, every day the sun shone bright,  
>  when you headed off wherever _she_ led _you_ ,  
>  that girl you loved as no one shall again be loved.  
>  There, when so many charming pleasures all continued,  
>  things that _you_ wanted, things _she_ didn't quite turn down,  
>  then for you truly every day the sun shone bright.  
>  Now, _she_ no longer wants _you_ : you too, powerless wretch, must not want her:  
>  do not pursue your fleeing girl, do not embrace a life of misery,  
>  make up your mind, harden yourself, endure, stay resolute!  
>  Farewell, sweetheart. Now Catullus _will_ harden himself,  
>  won't ask where she is, won't—since you're unwilling— beg, plead.  
>  Soon you'll be sorry, when he asks after you no more—  
>  wicked vixen, faithless, accursed girl, what life awaits you now?  
>  Who will pursue you now, who admire your beauty?  
>  Whom will you love? Who will call you theirs?  
>  Who will get your kisses? Whose lips will you bite in play?  
>  You, though, Catullus, make up your mind, stay firm!  
> 

"Ma'am, perhaps you had better explain what brought you—?"  
His voice stopped abruptly. The paper slipped guiltily from her fingers, eager to get away. A knock at the door rescued her from any explanation. Those wonderful eyes flickered to Victoria. There was no reason why she should not be here, in her own palace, yet there were a thousand why she should not be here unchaperoned.  
"Enter," Lord M. called.  
A rangy figure, all legs in servant's drab, walked into the sitting room. Melbourne raised an eyebrow at his winded state, striding forward to snatch up a small note. The courier himself was beyond anything more than panting at the floor. If Fortune smiled on Victoria, perhaps he would not bother to notice her presence at all.  
"From the Chief Whip, my Lord. I ran all the way to Dover House, then the butler said you were at Buck House still."  
Melbourne opened the wax seal with his thumb. The muscles in his face shifted, the brows frowned, the lips thinned.  
"Give his Lordship my thanks," Lord M. said, with carefully-affected neutrality.  
He glanced at the messenger, and whatever expression was on his face, the man bolted at it. Without, to Victoria's astonishment, so much as asking for sixpence. When she took the note, foreboding made her hands tremble.  
_Mindful of diplomatic incidents, I thought it best to report to you at once. Our two princelings have just entered Ma Fletcher's establishment. Same unknown companion as before. My Tory counterpart will have a score of unfaithful husbands, but no illegalities so far. None of our ministers have availed themselves of her nuns tonight—some good news at least._  
Victoria crushed the report in her fingers, flicking it away. It seemed to scuttle along the desk like the tarantula which Lord M. had discovered in the dispatches from Afghanistan. _Ma Fletcher's…same as before…unfaithful_. She understood the individual words, yet the meaning of the whole escaped her, as if her mind consciously shied from the enormity of it all.  
"Ma'am," dear Lord M. murmured, and in that single word lay apology and entreaty and a lingering question she could not face.  


Abruptly, she brushed away the hand hovering near her shoulder. Dashing tears from her eyes, she half-ran to the nearest door. It felt good to slam it shut. She pressed her forehead to the wood, hiccuping up sobs. A key sat in the lock. She twisted it. How could she possibly face him in such a state? Her fingers fumbled against the key and it clattered to the floor. She ground the heel of her palms into her eyes, stemming the unexpected fit of tears.  
"Ma'am, perhaps you would prefer a less…scandalous…room in which to hide?"  
Victoria watched the handle turn in vain. Then Lord M. continued, voice muffled through the wood:  
"You have—locked yourself, I must stress—into my…bedroom."  
How could he possibly sound so mortified, when he had precipitated it by ordering men to spy on the sexual escapades of her cousins? Victoria bit her lip, this time to stifle uncontrollable giggles. Was this what being in love meant, this unpredictable swaying between loss and laughter, her mind no more than a pendulum swung by the tantrums of Fortune? Or was this simply the onset of her grandfather's ailment? She leaned her back against the door until her breaths steadied. It was indeed a bedroom, although her eyes slid between the handsome pair of bedside tables with a stubborn determination to elide the presence of the bed itself. Then her guest thumped the door with his fist and her heart banged abruptly in sympathy.  
"Ma'am," Lord M. repeated wearily, "Must I be Dash for the evening?"  
She pictured him sleeping curled on her threshold, a shaggy, ill-tempered sentinel to warn her of the approach of Sir John or her mother, and smiled a little. That bestowed enough strength for her to take a few steps further in. The room lacked both chaise and chair, but then Lord M. had no need for dolls and even less to sit before a mirror for hours submitting to the coiffure of his valet. In that case, it was only sensible to sit on the bed. At least until she calmed herself to a fit state to face Lord M. again. Not Albert. She curled her arms around herself. How would she—how could _he_ face her—tomorrow?  


Plucking a candle from the sconce near the door, she padded over and lighted the pair of candles on the rightmost bedside table. She blew out her own, pinching the taper to ensure that no embers would spark, then set it upon the table. She ran her fingers down the bedpost, until they came to a little hook. So that was how Mrs Jenkins kept the bed-curtains open! Freeing one end of the sash, she tugged the curtain along its railing with both hands, until it no longer formed a barrier between the light and the pillows. Then she hopped upon the bed with some difficulty, the mattress being easily three feet from the ground. Propping herself against the pillows, she took the bedside candle by the handle in its silver dish. Sniffling a little, still, she surveyed the room. So this was a man's bedroom! The contents were so unremarkably like her own that this itself was remarkable: a chest of drawers, an alcove holding a pair of wardrobes, its opposite concealing a small porcelain wash-basin and a jug of water on a side-table. She made out a scattering of paintings on the walls, their depictions rendered meaningless by the half-light. Victoria could not imagine a less scandalous hiding place. With the bedside candle returned to its original lodgings, she curled her arms around herself again. For all that she felt the chill, she did not dare the intimacy of sliding under the goose-down bed-covers. Her chin drooped miserably towards her chest. For some time she did nothing but watch the reflection of the candlelight against the mother-of-pearl buttons of her nightgown.  


A warm hand rested against her cheek. Victoria jolted awake.  
"I wondered if you were asleep, Ma'am," Lord M. murmured.  
His voice was rich with irony. The back of his left hand lingered, knuckles brushing her skin. His right hand held two keys, which he set upon the table.  
"Caro," he sighed. "Old habits, Ma'am."  
"Did she lock you out because Lord Byron was with her?" Victoria blurted.  
He laughed, for some unfathomable reason.  
"Not…always," he admitted.  
The mattress sank as he sat on her edge of the bed. Silently, she moved further to the centre. Lord M. bent to fiddle with the fastenings of his court shoes, then kicked them aside. Sighing, he tugged her now-abandoned pillow to the sheets, rested his head upon it and folded his arms behind his head. Her confidant gazed up at his monarch in apparent tranquillity. Upright, with only a pillow to soften the mahogany headboard, she wondered whether it was proper to join him. She would not sleep, she knew, but it might be some small comfort.  
"The Chief Whip has a very specific remit," he began cautiously.  
"To enforce the discipline of _his_ members of parliament, to prevent scandal from tarnishing his _party_ , not, not to spy on men who are not even my subjects!"  
"Would you prefer to have heard this from your Uncle Cumberland?" he sighed.  
"Do the Tory whips spy on foreign dignitaries too?" she snapped.  
He tilted his head to meet her eyes. Quite suddenly, shame crept over her. This was her dear Lord M., who had rescued her at the first meeting of the Privy Council; who had spirited her from her own humiliation at the Coronation Ball; and when the Archbishop had forced the coronation ring onto the wrong finger, why, it had been Lord M. who had cradled it afterwards and kissed it better and very seriously asked if she might execute the poor Archbishop for treason.  
"Perhaps, Albert is…if he does not know how to…does he need to practise?" she babbled.  
She had made herself sound like a difficult sonata! The words tasted all wrong before they emerged, and sounded worse when they had. Lord M. sighed.  
"Ma'am, while your confidence is admirable…you must understand, it is not well-founded."  
His jaw snapped closed at his clearly unexpected fit of candour. Boldly, she ran her fingers through his hair. The pressure on his scalp appeared to calm him, for Lord M. continued:  
"You are still _virgo intacta_ , and the whores of the brothels are, by definition, not. Your betrothed may practice all he likes, but that will be of no benefit to your Majesty. The first time for a woman is inevitably painful."  
She frowned. No-one mentioned this in the stories.  
"Always?"  
He propped himself on an elbow, not quite able to meet her eyes.  
"You will have noticed, Ma'am, that the female intimate area is concave, yes?"  
Her nod made him blush most endearingly.  
"The man's is convex, and this design elicits friction between the two parts, which both parties—theoretically, one admits—find pleasurable. However, before she has engaged in amorous congress, there is a…seal…in the intimate areas of a woman, and your husband will have to use his…battering ram to—"  
"To render it no longer intact?" she queried.  
He nodded. Victoria chewed her bottom lip in a most un-regal fashion.  
"It all sounds rather unpleasant," she confessed.  
"It does not have to be so, Ma'am. Not all husbands are equally attentive."  
Lord M. frowned, toying with a loose thread of braid at his cuffs.  
"Only when a man has become a father, for example, does he really comprehend the marital duties of his wife, the burden he places upon her. Once he has heard her scream, and scream, and scream…how can he do anything else but strive to never be in her debt? To ensure that the pain of giving birth to their child is compensated for, as best he can, by the pleasure felt in conceiving it?"  
He sighed again, ponderous and gloomy. Surely he was thinking of his own children, both in their graves. Victoria shivered at the sorrow in his voice. Withdrawing her fingers from his curls, she reverted to wrapping her arms around herself. The movement made him stare, as if her presence had slipped his mind entirely.  
"Here," Lord M. said, reverting to a sitting position.  
Slowly he began to unbutton his jacket. Somehow it felt singularly inappropriate to aid him this time, in such an intimate setting. She watched him releasing the armour of navy wool and gold braid which he wore against her Coburg cousins and their charms, observing his fingers wander inexorably down, down…  
"Please continue," she said, before she became too transfixed to say anything at all.  
He shook his head slightly.  
"I digress. I held no intentions of frightening you."  
Lord M. struggled from his Windsor uniform in silence. For all that its tight fit emphasised his fine condition, the heavy garment had evidently been tailored to within an inch of its life to do so. She leaned forwards, allowing him to drape the long jacket over her shoulders. Once her cheek had drooped slowly onto his collarbone, it seemed curiously unwilling to leave.  


He fidgeted slightly, prompting a mutual re-tessellation of their contours. His right arm draped around her shoulders under his jacket, taking some of the weight of his uniform, but also pulling her to rest perpendicular to the cavity of his chest. She crossed her legs, so that the hypotenuse ran along his straightened ones. Were she to rotate her body a little further, they would be chest-to-chest, and her face would bury itself into the hollows of his neck. She refrained, looping her arms around his neck instead and recalibrating the position of her head on his shoulder.  
"I do not think it suits you, Ma'am. It may very well weigh more than you do."  
She giggled.  
"Everyone says that my grandfather was mad."  
"I shall ward off any plans for a Regency until you exhibit similar symptoms, Ma'am."  
His left hand trailed a leisurely path up her side. His warmth seeped through her nightgown, rendering her curiously lethargic and light-headed simultaneously.  
"Perhaps a miniature Windsor uniform for Dash," she yawned.  
Victoria closed her eyes, focusing on the gentle motions of his fingers, soothing, caressing… Her thoughts continued to snag on the event which had precipitated their current state. _Albert_ , of all people. Visiting a _brothel_.  
"How do I know if my husband is attentive?" she asked suddenly. "I can hardly compare him to anyone else."  
Lord M. made an indistinct noise at the back of his throat.  
"Perhaps if you were a Whig, Ma'am."  
His index finger alighted on her parted lips, forestalling her objections.  
"I do not mean politically, Ma'am. As a philosophy, in the style of Stoicism, Epicureanism, _et cetera_ , being a Whig is very useful. Amongst other things, once a dynasty has an heir, no-one bothers to maintain the pretence that whomever one has married for dynastic reasons is necessarily the love of one's life. In private, at least, one is free to cultivate relationships with other members of the aristocracy."  
Victoria wanted to ask a question, but that would necessitate Lord M. removing his beautiful finger from her lips. Surely her enquiries weren't so pressing. Particularly given Lord M.'s uncanny ability to read her thoughts, for he smiled slightly before elaborating:  
"Not in public, Ma'am. A blind eye can only be turned to so many indiscretions."  
"Is that _la vice anglaise_?" she mumbled against his fingers.  
His fingers abandoned her skin.  
"Where did you hear that?"  
"Uncle Leopold. I asked why you were so 'disreputable' if you had been acquitted of…well," she elided hastily, "if it were your wife who had behaved so badly, and he said—"  
"—that I enjoyed 'the English vice'," Lord M finished.  
His eyes flickered between hers as if trying to catch one of them in a lie. She nodded, wondering how anyone would dare challenge him at Question Time under such scrutiny.  
"That is something else, Ma'am," he said eventually.  
His free hand alighted on her kneecap, then slid along the silk of her nightgown until it lingered at her hip. His fingers retreated unhurriedly. A curious emptiness heralded the retreat of Lord M.'s fingers, and she whimpered slightly at the loss.  
"The English vice is a way of avoiding public scandal. A curious aspect of amorous congress is the translation of pain into pleasure. Under the correct circumstances, this can occur without the pitfalls of criminal conversation. If a couple should find themselves so compatible, they can produce a most excellent approximation of the feelings encountered in amorous congress."  
Back and forth his fingers slid, until she was quite hypnotised.  
"The capacity to give and receive pain varies, of course: a hand administered to the back of one's drawers may be enough for some, while others may not be excited until their subject bleeds—"  
"Do you mean that some people enjoy being whipped like a horse?" she blurted.  
This time his fingers slid under the nightgown. Victoria could not blink, let alone tear her eyes from his.  
"An apt simile, Ma'am. Sometimes the couple may find themselves so overwhelmed that a simulacrum of the sexual act is not enough, and so the gentleman may be tied lying on his back instead of his front, and indeed ridden much like a horse."  
"Tied up?" she gasped.  
Surely her nightgown was aflame by now. How might it withstand the heat, the all-consuming fire that licked along her skin?  
"Oh, yes. It is _exciting_ to be trusted so, to know that the flagellant is completely at the mercy of the flagellator; or to trust, to sublime all one's cares to the will of another."  
In a sudden fit of candour, her mind told her that, much like her own, this bed had _posts_ , and that attached to these posts to restrain the curtains were _cords_ , which might conceivably be utilized to restrain _ankles_ and _wrists_ —not her own, she was far too petite, but Lord M. had sufficient reach—and then—and then—  
"Please," she whimpered.  
Lord M. clearly held no objections to this epiphany. His fingertips slipped between the gap in her drawers. They drifted along her lips there, not parting them quite yet. Teasing and wry, like his one-sided smile. Then his gestures grew more assured. He pressed into places where even her own fingers had feared to explore, testing, _stroking_ … Victoria closed her eyes. It was no use: even the blackness of her eyelids glowed. Somewhere below her stomach there was a knotting, twisting ache, with so much dampness between her legs that she thought her course must have come early; but this was pleasure, not pain, and what shred of consciousness remained to her told Victoria that the source of all this overwhelming joy was not the lips between her legs, which Lord M. was stroking and rubbing so tenderly, but a tiny little spot further up, where his thumb lavished its attentions, until—  
"Victoria," dearest Lord M. breathed, reverent.  


She cried out. Her body shuddered uncontrollably, her head spilled backwards, and she cracked her skull firmly against the mahogany bed-head. With that, her sense returned. Here she was, in her Prime Minister's bed, head cradled in his hands, his lips gentle against her forehead, revelling in his amorous fantasies. Worse, a willing participant!  
"No! No, I am no better than Albert!" she sobbed.  
He released her without question. His hands flickered to her shoulders and pushed away his dress jacket with the slightest of touches. She could see the pulse throbbing in his neck and hear him panting, yet when his gaze settled on her it was as steady and reassuring as always.  
"Ma'am," he began, his voice soft and velvet and angry, " _you_ have every right to learn to find pleasure in the consummation of your marriage. Your _consort_ has no right to pay some tart to get his cock sucked!"  
The unexpected vulgarity hurt her more than any physical blow.  
"Lord Melbourne, you forget yourself!" she shouted.  
"Albert should never have done such a thing!"  
Stubbornly, she shook her head. Shame churned in her stomach, but there was an absurd pang of loss too. Her heart pounded, ringing an unsteady carillon in her chest.  
"Nor should I! I am Queen of England! I am the head of the Anglican church! How can I commit such—"  
She floundered into silence. "Sin," she had wanted to say, but how could anything so evil have felt so harmonious, so natural? Even now, Victoria could lean her head against his chest, knowing with utter security that he would do no more than stroke her hair and make her feel _safe_.  
"You will have done your duty already at the altar, and I have no doubt that you will produce heirs and give the monarchy the security it so needs. Is that not burden enough?"  
"I must trust that Albert does not do this for his own sake," she insisted.  
Lord M. buried his head in his hands, dragging his fingernails against his scalp as if he wanted them to draw blood.  
"Your Majesty, I do not think you understand!" he ground out.  
"I understand that Albert will not hurt me in this way again, for a certainty," she declared.  
"He has hurt you once already, for a certainty," he snapped, "And without question, he will hurt you again!"  
And with that, he left. She watched the expanse of his back as he crossed the room, and heard the door slam. Victoria hugged the pillow to herself. It smelled of Lord M. but she could hardly fault it for that. It would not stroke her hands with the sweetest of touches while caressing her ears with the gentlest of lies, nor would it leave offerings of rare flowers and beautifully-reasoned phrases. She buried her face in it, clinging to it, and tried with all her resolve not to find beauty in the parting glimpse of Lord M., with tears crowding greedily at the corners of his eyes, hanging from his long, dark lashes like the dreams which formed the leaves of the tree of sleep.  


"Lord Melbourne is widowed, Victoria!"  
Flinching at the voice, Victoria steadied her nerves. A queen ought not to jump at shadows. Even one dressed only in her nightclothes. She took a few long breaths and peeked around the corner to the next corridor. Cousin Ernest leaned against the wall, too exhausted to hold himself upright. A lazy grin toyed with his lips like a cat with a plump mouse.  
"Albert is betrothed to be _married_ , Ernest!" she snapped, voice rising. "How could you—?"  
Victoria found herself quite unable to describe what he had been doing. If she did not say the words, perhaps they would not be true. Ernest winked at her.  
"Those in glass houses, cousin, should not throw stones," he murmured.  
His face brightened. Had she been able to reach, Victoria would have very much wanted to hit it.  
"Although I did not take you for a _connoisseuse_ of _la vice anglaise_. Are the cheeks on your bottom as red as the ones on your face?"  
A little ember of rage sputtered to life in her chest. Her cheeks were red with anger, surely, not mortification! She had had a perfectly good reason to visit Lord M.'s quarters, apartments which she herself had granted to him, despite Dover House being only across St. James. Did everyone expect her to cast him out at two, or three, or some other witching hour to walk a mile and a half home? Why did everyone expect that her Prime Minister's disreputable conduct extended to every woman in his life? Why, when she had finally made her choice, was she more suspect than when she had been crowded with suitors?  
"The bond between Crown and Parliament is a sacred one, Ernest. Do you honestly entertain the notion that I would cast that aside for some—some _nocturnal adventure_ with a man forty years my senior?"  
The glow faded from her cousin's Coburg features.  
"You sound like Albert."  
She blinked.  
"He is always defending you," Ernest admitted. "Even to Leopold."  
"How is it that you make something so reasonable sound so indefensible?" she enquired sweetly, fighting her temper.  
"How does one explain my brother, dear cousin? I took him to a nunnery and all he wanted to play with were the coloured pencils!" he sighed.  
Warm, sweeping relief passed over her like midsummer sunlight. Albert had not…Lord M. had misjudged him! Surely he was as quick to see sin and failure as she had been with Sir John and poor Lady Flora. She felt quite as intoxicated as she had at the Coronation Ball. She wanted to laugh. She wanted Ernest to spin her in his arms all the way back to her bedroom. She wanted Albert. Perhaps her giddiness would not permit her to climb the stairs, and she ought to collapse into Lord M.'s empty bed and…no, he was gone to Dover House, could not be scolded until the morning. Even that made her heart stutter happily: the thought of him on his knees, begging forgiveness for his idiocy. Her cousin yawned. Suddenly his exhaustion was contagious. She slumped against the panelled wood. Grinning, Ernest loosened his neck-tie reflectively. Perhaps everything was written across her face. A little patch of grey dawn lingered on the skirting board and began to encroach on the rug.  
"Well," he continued, "the bride proposed the marriage, after all, perhaps it is better if she knows how to consummate it."  
No response would dignify _that_ , for all that he was merely teasing! She pointed in the direction of the North Wing with one hand, sweeping an invisible whip with the other.  
" _Gute Nacht, Ernest. Ins Bett mit dir!_ "  
Smiling, he bowed in mock seriousness.  
"Good night…Mrs. Melbourne."  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In reality, Melbourne continued as PM after the wedding, only resigning when a Motion of No Confidence was passed against him some months later. (Obviously there are narrative reasons that the show doesn't bother with this, amongst which is their beautiful parting scene.) The historical opportunity was too good to pass up, so this chapter is basically in a sort of limbo between canon and RL.
> 
> Poems: 85, 1 (partial)

> I loathe and I love. You wonder, perhaps, why do I do this?  
>  I do not know. I feel its affliction. I am crucified.  
> 

Lord Melbourne toyed absently with the pen, watching the feather spin about the axis of his fingers. A meagre distraction, but a better occupant for his hands than the brandy snifter. _Tortured,_ he appended, striking out _crucified_ with the careful precision of the practised alcoholic. Crucifixion carried too many religious connotations. Reaching for the original text, he graffitied a small tick next to the number of the poem and moved onward to eighty-six. This volume was new, despite his best efforts to crease its spine, and only tainted by the inscription _To William, who no longer has the courage to ask for his old volume to be returned, despite the fact that Emma could very well just lift it from little Vicky's bookshelf—Portman House, Christmas 1841._ He slammed the book closed. Tomorrow…  
"My Lord? A message from the Palace."  
His steward's voice made a welcome interruption. For one dizzying, hopeful splinter of time, he expected the man to continue. _Lady Portman says that she knows what day it is, but the Queen is expecting you._ Four years, was it only that long ago? He waved in the royal messenger, not quite trusting his tongue to produce anything less incoherent than his thoughts. His visitor placed a box on the desk, large enough to be carried in both hands, bowed, then withdrew, livery glittering falsely in the firelight. Melbourne's now-empty hand twitched for the decanter. He had had to put down the pen to wave in that accursed messenger and his even more accursed tidings. Joints creaking, he rose from the armchair to limp the length of the room to his desk. A clockwork Viscount now, was he? His mouth twitched at the irony.  


Standing, he ran a hand over each box, palms flattened against the wood. On the left, the smaller box, with all its grief-familiar contours. Augustus's letters, while the capacity to write had remained to him—and the wit to remember that he had a father to whom to write; the feather which had amused him so when it was no longer used as a quill; a charcoal of the both of them at Brocket Hall, his son perhaps ten or so, the singular creation of Caro's which he kept at Dover House…  
On the right, an unfamiliar expanse of polished walnut, just large enough to accommodate a sheet of parchment without folding, smartly bossed at the corners with brass fittings. His thumb snared on the brass catch. Flicking it open, the lifted the lid with both hands. Paper, pages and pages of it, all numbered, all in her hand.  


>   
>  Who is the dedicatee of my new, witty  
>  booklet, all fresh-polished with abrasive?  
>  You, Cornelius, for you always used to  
>  feel my trivia possessed some substance.  
> 

His fingers crumpled the translation of their own accord. Then his self-control returned and he smoothed the paper flat again. Perhaps if his knees were better, he might walk over and cast it into the fire. Melbourne returned the paper to its box and shut the lid.  


"I am not to be disturbed!"  
The shout set his headache off again, which only fuelled his ire. Scraping his chair away from the desk, Melbourne rounded on his steward without turning. Had the man not gone to chapel with the rest of his household?  
"Unless my visitor is the contemptible sewer rat responsible for this motion of no confidence, in which case his grovelling apology is more than welcome!" he exploded.  
"Are the Chartists asking for animals as well as women in Parliament now, Lord M.?"  
He turned, stared, somehow found his voice, an effort more laborious than any response at Question Time.  
"Not in England, Ma'am, although I hear that the ones you exiled to New Zealand may be starting a "Give Sheep the Vote" party," he managed at a more civilised volume.  
"Literally, or metaphorically?" she giggled.  
"Well, the governor is a Tory, Ma'am. Does he count as a sheep?"  
Absurdly, he felt his lips curling into a smile to match her own. Her blue eyes sparkled with more riches than his poor jest deserved. He windmilled an arm in the vague direction of a chair, eyes occupied in scanning the room for an absent chaperone. No Albert, then.  
"Dover House is honoured, Ma'am."  
Was it some a cruel twist of fortune that she wore the same hat, the same silk dress adorned with cream lace, sufficiently low at the back to permit his thumb to innocently graze her skin? Yet this time she walked two paces ahead of him.  


Her Majesty chose a seat slightly oblique to his armchair, from a semi-circle of them arranged for a hasty Cabinet council of war that afternoon.  
"You have not been answering my summons," she said.  
What did she expect? It had been hard enough to attend the wedding. How could he intrude upon Albert's domain? Where he had almost kissed her at the Coronation Ball, where he ought to have cherished her after his resignation, where she had nearly slept in his arms, where he might have consummated their marriage; where he had been her husband in everything but name, except in the one way which would have barred Albert from her forever.  
"No, Ma'am," he said.  
"Have you been unwell, Lord M.?"  
She gestured for him to take a seat. He collapsed into his armchair with perfunctory grace.  
"I…have no cause for complaint, Ma'am. Given my age, of course, I am not afflicted by any unusual pains."  
It had hurt at Christmas. His heart, mostly, at the sight of the royal family at Buckingham House. A snow-enforced traffic jam on the Mall had cursed him with ample time to see the glow from the gas lamps, Victoria and her husband decorating a pine tree—indoors, without the servants, adorned in candles and aglitter with baubles. Some curious German custom! Not at all the festivities he had envisaged. He had shivered, despite the candles and the familiarity of his carriage, mind tugging at some long-dormant dream of Victoria escaping the stultifying boredom of her consort, time enough for a game of chess while he watched his mulled wine stain her lips and his sharp tongue stain her cheeks, neither of them greedy nor reckless enough to dare spend the night together…  
"I…"  
He watched her throat contract, while his fingers curled helplessly around the arms of his chair.  
"I…came to return your book," she stuttered out.  
He closed his eyes, briefly. He was tired so often now, for no discernible reason. Last night's brandy pounded his head with a severity he had not experienced since Cambridge; yet that had required an entire May Ball to lay him low, and with it the combined efforts of Byron and Shelley from dusk until dawn.  
"I think we both know why you chose to return it now, Ma'am.."  
"Now you have a chance to defend yourself!"  
Oh, how stubborn she was! And yet so changed… He did not believe in much, he reminded himself sternly: surely the Constitution was something which did deserve his faith, no matter how tiresome it was when its privileges were actually exercised.  
"I hear that Lady Elizabeth Anglesey is very charming," he said gently.  
Her lips tightened.  
"And that unlike Lady Emma, she plays the piano," he continued, voice as soft and velvety as a pair of kid-skin gloves.  
The line of her mouth wobbled slightly. He had never wanted her to cry more, save perhaps at Brocket Hall; yet he had never wanted her more thanks to her resistance. He might not be her Prime Minister for more than a few days now, but he was still her friend; and surely, surely he deserved more than the stubborn mask she presented to the rest of the world! Did she no longer trust him to brush the moisture from her cheeks; or to lift her into his lap so that she might bury her face in his dressing gown, hiding her shame from the daylight; or to cast reassuring strokes along her back while he kissed her hair, and then her temples, and the creases from her forehead, and the tears from her cheeks, her lips, until she let him explore the depths of her mouth… Did she not understand that he would not be satisfied with himself, until he proved that he could devour her grief whole?  
"Peel will not replace my Ladies," she stated. "Not all of them. Who else will convey my letters to you? How will you send me flowers? Where will I turn for advice on the constitution? Who will read the dispatches to me?"  
Melbourne hardened himself to the pleading in her voice. When had he done any of those things, since the wedding? He had not met with Her Majesty in months, leaving the monarch's trust in her Prime Minister implicit—and, perhaps, some nasty hidden splinter of him considered, ill-founded. He could not run the country from Brocket Hall, the past months had taught him that.  
"You know very well that we can _not_ …" he sighed in exasperation. "Ma'am, any correspondence with the Leader of the Opposition implies a lack of trust in the serving Prime Minister!"  
"I _will_ write to my friend!"  
The motion of his hand silenced her outburst. Her bottom lip jutted out, just a little, a relic of her life at Kensington.  
"I will burn your letters Ma'am."  
The pout deepened. He wanted to feel it dissolve under his fingertips. Her lips parted to speak. He wanted to kiss her silent.  
"Unread," he added, desperately.  
Her chair scraped across the floorboards. Her Majesty turned her back on him and walked away.  


He was so accustomed to watching her leave him that it did not occur to him to prevent it. He sat and watched her glide past the doors into the hall. He watched as she paced to his desk. He watched as she walked the length of his library. What did it matter that he said nothing, did nothing as she approached him. She would only leave him again. As she did, pacing back towards the desk. He awaited her return, more helpless in the face of her misery than ever before. Had he not always known what to say to comfort her? Was this Victoria so alien to him, all because of another ring upon her hands? He started at the slightest pressure of her hand on his shoulder. The fleeting hope came to him that it might be deliberate, that she had scorned his waistcoat and placed her hand where only his shirt lay between her palm and his collarbone.  
"It would be rude of me to leave without a kiss farewell, would it not?" she asked suddenly.  
"Yes, Ma'am," he said, one of those statements that was all question.  
She held no inclination to offer her hand to him, as she had done at Kensington.  
"You once told me that…that you were not Albert," she murmured.  
"That if you ever granted me the honour of a kiss, I would not waste it on your mouth?" he recalled dryly.  
Well that had served Albert right for snogging his bride-to-be in the corridors! Anyone might have happened upon them. Was God really that cruel, that it had chosen him? He had smashed one of Emma's uglier specimens of bric-à-brac; had endured Edward's lecture that he ought to have taken his chance when he had it, for since the Bedchamber Crisis everyone assumed that he was her companion anyway; had woken more times at Portman House than in his own bed, in the days before the wedding. The pair of them must have helped, for he had not unsheathed the Sword of State and run Albert through with it.  
"You must know that there are certain lessons I have waited for you to teach me since the Coronation Ball."  
Her words stroked his ears as delicately as her hands did on his. His throat was dry. Did she even understand what she proposed? What if the Crown Princess was followed by a boy, with green eyes and a mass of jet curls? Surely he had done the noble thing in not seducing her, with all his talk of duty over inclination. Yet here she was, making a mockery of his self-sacrifice.  
"I believe that I can redress my omission, in such a way that the consequences will be minimal," he offered.  
She nodded. He rose from his chair. She turned to let him unlace her gown. He worked at the buttons with meticulous precision, watching her hands clench and unclench at her sides. She stepped out of her froth of petticoats, leaving them and her skirts pooled on the floor amongst the books. The more he loosened her corset, the faster her breaths came. He knelt again, undoing her shoes, watching the raw disappointment in her eyes when he stood once more.  
"I think you know how to remove the rest," he said dispassionately.  


She was completely artless. The chemise was flung off, over her arms and sliding down her back in a flurry of silk. Then her drawers, hastily shoved to her feet. He gave her shoulders the slightest tap. Victoria collapsed backwards into his armchair, the cheeks of her bottom resting on the discarded chemise. He watched it darken under the first signs of wetness between her legs. In her eagerness she nearly laddered her stockings. Her breathless impatience excited him more than any languorous strip-tease might have.  
"Proceed," she demanded.  
He walked around the back of the chair instead. His folded his arms on the back of the furniture and scrutinised her. She tipped her head backwards to meet his eyes. Hers were blue and wide and pleaded most eloquently.  
"Is Your Majesty quite certain of what she desires?" he enquired, as calm as if they were discussing some minutiae or other in the State Rooms.  
"You promised me a kiss," she gasped.  
He rested his hands on her warm shoulders. When her fingers flew upwards he seized them, resting his palms on the backs of her hands, intertwining their fingers.  
"So I did. Show me where," he demanded.  
He slipped their palms over her reddened cheeks, the ridges and valleys of her neck, her collarbone, greedily drinking in the sight for when he would no longer set eyes upon her. He let their hands cup her dainty breasts.  
"Not here?" he asked lazily.  
He could only see the crown of her head, as her gaze followed his fingers. He ran her fingertips over the hardened nipples. She gasped a little, but made no reply. He pinched, hard.  
"Not here?" he repeated, a little more stone in his voice.  
She moaned, head lolling into the corner of his chair.  
"No, Lord M.," she gasped. "Between—between my legs."  
He had to bend double to reach, skimming her hipbones and down the tops of her thighs, extending to the inside of her knees. He stood on his toes and dropped his head to rest against her cheek, letting his weight rest on the furniture. His spine clicked. Either he had been more flexible when Caro was alive, or he had since shrunk a few inches.  
"Here?" he breathed into her ear.  
She tugged at his fingers. He let her slide their hands along the inside of her thighs, as slowly as his tattered self-control commanded, watching her squirm as their hands skimmed back and forth, inching upwards.  
"Further up, Lord M., Lord M., please, let me…"  
He slipped his left thumb against her nether lips. She moaned, arching her hips most satisfactorily. He bit her earlobe.  
"Quiet would be in your best interests, Ma'am. What if someone were to find us?"  
He watched her jaw shudder with the effort of silence. Their cheeks slid against each other. His breaths washed evenly against her skin. The more dispassionate he stayed, the more desperate she became. He clenched his jaw on the side away from her. Was he really so out of practice that even sliding his fingers inside her frayed his nerves?  
"If I were to kiss you there, why, I would have to remove my fingers."  
"You _promised_! You always keep your promises," she nearly sobbed.  
He pulled their entangled fingers from inside her. Their left hands, he pulled to his mouth. He permitted his eyelids to flicker closed as he sucked their fingers clean. There was something terribly exciting about her helpless moans as he did so, utterly devoid of the self-possession she was forced to display in public.  
"What did I say about _silence_?" he demanded.  
His eyes opened at the touch of her lips against his right hand. She stoppered her moans with their fingers. Well, he had never considered her a slow learner, he reflected. His cock twitched in his breeches, clearly pleased by the imitation. He kissed her cheek when she had finished.  
"I do not recall that being the kiss you promised," Her Majesty demanded.  
Her voice shook. Quivered, much like her legs from the effort of remaining still.  


He bent his knees again and found to his joy that his joints did not protest. Her fingers curled sharply into his hair, tugging him forwards. He smiled against her plump lips, resisting the urge to bite. How impatient. Was it not his duty to remedy her flaws? He set his chin between her legs, so close that her fine hair tickled his nose.  
"Such violence, Ma'am. One would almost think that you wanted me to stop."  
Her hands settled cautiously on his shoulders. He watched the frantic rise and fall of her chest, admiring what it did to her breasts.  
"I will behave myself, I will, please, just, _close_ ," she whimpered. "So close, please., _Lord M._ "  
He brushed his closed mouth against her. The noise she made was not fit for a queen. Her nails dug into his skin. Demanding, masking her vulnerability with sharpness, just as she had before he had earned her trust.  
"This will not do, Ma'am."  
He stood, towering over her. If only he had bothered with a necktie, he might have put the damned thing to good use for once. He unclipped the chain of his pocket watch from the buttonhole in his waistcoat.  
"Place your hands behind your back."  
She obeyed without question. He leaned over her, encircled her wrists and looped the chain tight. His pocket watch swayed in the small of her back. Just as he was admiring his handiwork, she leaned forwards to bury her face in his groin.  
"Do that again and I will leave you here," he rasped.  
He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing through his nose. Surely, surely it would be Caro there when he opened them, clad in nothing but his dressing gown, toying with him until he fucked her mouth just the way she liked. No-one else would have dared—but his cock strained further at his breeches and the thought eluded him. His self-discipline was in tatters. His legs no longer wanted to support him. Nearly collapsing into her lap, he set his tongue between her folds with a vengeance.  


She was wetter than in his fantasies. Of course he had always been her first, as he tossed feverishly in his bed. It had never occurred to him that she might choose another to initiate her into the rituals of what passed between husband and wife. He probed further with his tongue, almost surprised that he could not find her maidenhood, for this delight was so surreal that it must have been a fantasy. He would have lavished every attention on her, revelling in every sound he could draw from her throat, every drop of moisture from between her legs; he would have slid his tongue back and forth across her hymen until he satisfied himself that the pain was no impediment to her climax; he would have neglected his cock until her first ecstasy, then driven himself into her, not slowly as Albert would have done, but in one sure motion, with utter certainty that the pain was drowned in waves of mounting delirium. That would have satisfied him: not for him the risk of childbirth, or driving too hard into her delicate body, or leaving bruises upon her perfect skin for her husband to ponder over. He would have let her explore his body as much or as little as satisfied her curiosity, even if it necessitated restraining his limbs and the base of his cock and left his desires unfulfilled… His cock immediately made a liar of him, pouring the evidence of his desire into his drawers. He rested his cheek against her damp thigh, gasping for breath. Circular breathing appeared to have deserted him. So had his manners, for he had lost all notion of whether she had climaxed or not.  
"Do I not please you?" she asked.  
"Ma'am?" he managed between pants.  
"You stopped," she pointed out somewhat unnecessarily.  
He had been too bloody aroused to pay attention to her, and that was unconscionable. Well, he would just have to remedy that.  
"I fear that you please me too much, Ma'am."  
He kissed along the creases below her hipbones. Obediently her legs parted, while he ran his hands over them, deliberate and soothing. Then he tipped back onto his heels, rather than resting on his knees, and lifted her legs to hook her knees over the arms of the chair. A most undignified yelp of surprise left her mouth. Of course, he had quite forgotten.  
"I suppose I ought to untie you," he mused.  
He had not imagined that her skin could flush any deeper pink than it already had. A few strands of hair had worked loose from her elaborate coiffure and clung to her forehead.  
"No! No, thank you, I like that, Lord M." she gulped.  
He smiled, the world still aglow. Then he slipped his hands underneath her pert bottom and returned to his exercise in perfectionism. Unhurriedly, he applied his mouth with precision, never falling into a pattern, delighting in the surprised gasps he elicited. The more she writhed in abandon, the more he wanted to draw just one more climax from her, just to delight in the noises she made and the way she tasted and the resonance of her ecstasy along every fibre of his body.  


Melbourne glanced upwards. He had made Her Majesty cry. He stood, kicking away the nearest chairs with his foot. Then he hauled her to her feet.  
"I know that I am not very experienced," she mumbled into his shirt.  
He chuckled. That earned him a tremulous smile.  
"How am I supposed to be satisfied with…that is not the sort of kissing to which I am accustomed."  
Gently, he untangled the chain of his pocket watch from around her wrists. He had left little, purple indentations on her skin, insufficiently hard to bruise. He ran his thumbs over them.  
"I seem to recall mentioning to you that happiness can always be recalled in tranquillity, Ma'am."  
He was pleased that his voice did not waver. A lifetime of public speaking had granted him his very own Cerberus, a ruthless guard-monster which stood between his thoughts and his tongue. He quelled any assurances that she did not have to be satisfied with her husband, that state obligations and private inclinations were entirely different, that he and Caro had been a love match and look how _that_ had ended. He was startled from his reverie by Victoria lavishing kisses upon his cheeks.  
"We are a matched pair, are we not?" she asked, every word interpunctuated by a chaste kiss.  
He blinked. Then Lord Melbourne realised that the moisture on his cheeks was not only from her.  
"Perhaps I am no better than my nemesis," he confessed. "I thought that it would, no, that if I could hurt her the way she had me, then she might understand. She did not stop. Perhaps if I had conceded defeat first, but her behaviour gave me licence to continue as well, and then, well, there was always one more enemy to cuckold or one more friend to comfort. I—mmph."  
Her Majesty had decided to put his tongue to better use than rambling. Victoria still had her arms flung around his neck. She teetered, balancing precariously to reach his mouth. He kissed her the way he ought to have at the Coronation Ball, and fancied that he could taste champagne on her tongue.  
"I like the way you taste, Lord M.," she giggled.  
"Likewise, Ma'am."  
Then she began to lower herself to her knees.  


Victoria, on her knees, her mouth between his legs! The very idea upset the natural order of things, a goddess demanding to worship her own supplicant. He closed his eyes, briefly. _Fellatio_ was too synonymous with his ghosts. Caro had never liked his cock more than when it was sliding between Byron's lips: the pale, fragile aristocrat being hurt had driven her wild with frustrated desire—all the more so because the more vindictive her husband had been, the sooner his rival's seed had splattered over the parquetry. Hadn't it been _exciting_ , knowing that the public scandal had masked something even more indecent, which no-one had had the wit to consider? Hadn't they all been so _clever_ in their lust, until their mutual, insatiable greed had destroyed them? Hadn't he learned _anything_ , for here he was again, with the object of his adoration nuzzling enthusiastically at the fabric at his groin, rubbing her cheek against the hardness she coaxed from it?  
"Victoria," he choked out.  
He bit savagely on his tongue. What was the point? If the sun wanted to rise in the west, would begging return it to its rightful place in the heavens?  
"Lord M.," she murmured, sounding more than a little dazed.  
She lifted her face to look at him, and sure enough, her pupils had blossomed insidiously into the blue of her eyes. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips, to no avail. He buried his hands in the softness of her hair, intending to prevent her from further ministrations. He was unable to restrain her hands. He watched, powerless, as her fingers unfastened the buttons of his trousers, her hands trembling a little more with each one. Her fingers shivered over the ties of his drawers.  
"Your Majesty," he said sharply.  
He tugged firmly at her hair. The queen rose to her feet, swaying like an asp before a snake-charmer, intoxicated and thwarted all at once.  
"There must be a way of—tell me how to—I only wanted to—" she uttered breathlessly.  
A smile tugged at his lips. Her skin glowed with shame and want and trepidation, heat radiating from her so strongly that it had a smell, a taste.  
"Your Majesty wished to reciprocate?"  
She nodded, their faces so close that the motion bumped her forehead against his jaw. Her head tilted upwards, a question in her arousal-stained eyes.  
"When is, when will you…"  
She could not bring herself to say it. Such a small gesture, but it warmed him nonetheless.  
"The bill has passed the Commons. I can block it for a while; the Speaker is in my debt. Friday, perhaps."  
She kissed him again. He opened his mouth obediently, swallowing her moans until she ran out of air.  
"Then you must come to the Palace tomorrow, and Tuesday, and Wednesday—"  
"I do know the days of the week Ma'am, I am not senile quite yet. And I cannot go to the House smelling of Victoria!"  
She giggled impishly.  
"The House must feel that its Prime Minister has the confidence of the monarch, must it not?"  
He groaned into her skin. If he were a decade or two younger, he would have the energy to put her over his lap and—. Well, he must visit Buckingham Palace tomorrow, must he not?  
" _Does_ the Prime Minister have the confidence of his monarch?"  
He had intended to kiss his way from her shoulder to her lips, but he became distracted by the way her pulse tasted under his tongue, and how her hands tugged at his hips when he marked her there. Let Albert see, what did he care?  
"Are you quite certain that there is nothing else I can do to…reinforce my trust?"  
"Many things, Ma'am, each one as illegal as the next. And yet, what are laws, to someone who rules by divine right?"  
He watched her smile. It was glorious. She was glorious.  
"Perhaps, regardless of the vote…"  
He kissed away the doubt in her voice. He had adored her enough to give her up to a better husband. Not a better companion.  
"That is to say, in my capacity as a woman, rather than as a monarch, I can still avail myself of your counsel?"  
There had been a thousand reasons for him to say 'No', had there not? Something about duty over inclination? The strange balance of power between them, fluid and unstable in its every equilibrium. All his ghosts.  
"I place myself entirely at your disposal, Ma'am. Regardless of the vote."  



End file.
